In an online survey of teachers, 50% of participants said they work more than 16 hours per week above their contracted hours.
Photograph: Alamy

A few years ago, I recommended teaching to someone dear to me whom I felt would be a fantastic asset to the profession. This year, she moved to the UK to rise to the challenge. I have seen her tested to her limits. After her fifth week in the job, she wrote this:

On my way home from school yesterday apparently one of my colleagues saw me from their car. They were right in front of me, but I didn’t even notice. I was on another planet and in my own head worrying about progress, progress, progress, marking, marking, marking. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sick in my life. Someone actually stopped me at the train station and asked me if I was okay.

Unfortunately, things haven’t got any better for teachers. More recently, I received a text from a colleague in another school – someone I have believed in and urged to go on through challenging periods. He told me he was leaving. I tried to persuade him otherwise. He replied: “I’m sad to be leaving the classroom and I’m sad to be leaving the kids, but I feel a relief that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.”

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It’s conversations like these that have driven me to write a book about teacher wellbeing and retention. I want to understand what is making so many teachers, who are so full of potential, disillusioned and frustrated. I want to decipher why morale is so low, and help find some solutions.

As part of my research, I conducted an online questionnaire asking teachers about their working hours, their motivations to join the profession, the positive elements of their jobs, and what they find most challenging. So far I’ve had 1,419 responses and my findings are alarming.

Unsurprisingly, workload was identified as a major concern. When asked how much time they work outside of contracted hours, 50% of participants said they work more than 16 hours a week beyond their contracted hours. Some 25% of participants put this figure at more than 20 hours a week.

Of the practising teachers who responded, a staggering 30% ranked “a heavy workload” as the factor (of a list of 12) most likely to have a negative impact on motivation and wellbeing at work. Of former teachers, 67% either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “My workload was manageable”, and 32% ranked workload as the top factor (of a choice of six) in their decision to leave the profession.

Soon after coming into office in 2015, Nicky Morgan took steps to address poor morale, and the government launched the workload challenge survey which received 44,000 responses. More recently, Morgan announced the publication of three reports about the key concerns raised the the survey: marking, planning and data. At the NASUWT conference in March, Morgan pledged “to support the profession to tackle unnecessary workload”. On one level, this gesture is welcome, but it has done little to stem the growing tide of discontent and indignation from teachers.

My research also suggests that workload is the tip of the iceberg. When asked, in an open question, to explain what drove them away from the classroom, 12 (out of 113) former teachers made explicit mention of bullying by managers. This is far more than I would have expected. One person described “bullying in every aspect of my professional life by one person”, while another participant said they attempted suicide while enduring bullying and discrimination at work.

Another key problem seems to be a lack of recognition. Only 5% of respondents to my survey agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Teaching is positively portrayed in the media”, and only 3% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “Teachers are respected by politicians”.

The leader’s job is to be the 'shit umbrella': to protect staff from less-than-useful messages that appear from above

This is the result of education reforms that headteachers first hear about on television, and of petitions ignored as though teachers’ voices are irrelevant. This culture, where teachers are cut out from policy decisions, has damaging consequences: not only do professionals feel undermined, but there is also a great deal of misinformation that exacerbates stress.

The question “What does Ofsted want to see?” dominates school staffrooms, with the big O being the explicit theme or sub-text of almost every communication. I never would have imagined that I would defend Ofsted, but they don’t actually prescribe a marking load, written lesson plans, or the regularity of data entry – it’s the perceptionsof what they want that are most damaging.

Managers – who are themselves under a huge amount of pressure – can struggle to see the impact this has on the mental health of individuals. Teachers are scolded for forgetting to enter data, which then overshadows all the triumphs in the classroom. They go home feeling they can’t win when balancing work and family, or having watched colleagues choose to leave teaching rather than arrive home in a bad state again.

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School leaders and managers are facing a huge challenge. It is, in the words of an esteemed colleague, the leader’s job to be the “shit umbrella”: to protect staff from the less-than-useful messages that appear from above. Leaders need to have the integrity and moral compass to put their school’s ethos, students and staff first. They must not allow themselves to be intimidated by perceived expectations into micromanagement and bullying behaviour that ultimately drives staff away. It is the job of Morgan and her team to ensure that teachers are absolutely clear about what is, and isn’t, expected.

I’m lucky. Many of us are. I love my job. My senior leadership team is compassionate and emotionally intelligent. My colleagues make me laugh and fill me with hope. My students give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

But, more and more, I cease to be surprised by stories of teachers who can’t cope. The education crisis is reaching a peak. Let’s work together – for the sake of our young people – to solve it.

Please do fill in my survey if you haven’t already. Your voices are hugely important.

Emma Kell’s book, How to Survive and Thrive in Teaching, published by Bloomsbury Education, and will be out in 2017

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.